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Violin Plots

What is a violin plot?

A violin plot combines:

  • A KDE distribution shape
  • A box-plot-like summary inside

It’s useful when you want to see the shape of distributions (multi-modal, skew).

Violin plot in Seaborn

Violin plot
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
tips = sns.load_dataset("tips")
 
plt.figure(figsize=(7, 4))
sns.violinplot(data=tips, x="day", y="total_bill")
plt.title("Total bill distribution by day")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
Violin plot
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
tips = sns.load_dataset("tips")
 
plt.figure(figsize=(7, 4))
sns.violinplot(data=tips, x="day", y="total_bill")
plt.title("Total bill distribution by day")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Add inner summary

Violin with inner quartiles
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
tips = sns.load_dataset("tips")
 
plt.figure(figsize=(7, 4))
sns.violinplot(data=tips, x="day", y="total_bill", inner="quartile")
plt.title("Violin plot with quartiles")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
Violin with inner quartiles
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
tips = sns.load_dataset("tips")
 
plt.figure(figsize=(7, 4))
sns.violinplot(data=tips, x="day", y="total_bill", inner="quartile")
plt.title("Violin plot with quartiles")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

When to prefer violin vs box

  • Use box plots for quick comparisons and outlier focus.
  • Use violin plots when the distribution shape matters.

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